Ask the Experts: Gill Charlton, our consumer travel expert, helps a
reader whose holiday became £214 more expensive after removing a person from
their booking

Martha English writes In January, I booked a week’s holiday at the Bluesun Hotel Berulia on the Croatian coast for two adults and two children departing on August 22. The total cost was £2,902 on a half-board basis including flights from Gatwick to Dubrovnik.

Unfortunately, I discovered in early May that one of the children could no longer come with us so I contacted easyJet Holidays to amend the booking.

I have telephoned easyJet’s customer services team eight times on 0871 977 6600 to try and sort the matter out. The call centre is in Spain and you queue for ages before someone with poor English answers. They simply don’t seem to understand how the process works and emails on the subject are not returned.

I reckon I have now spent over £120 on calls only to discover that by deleting one person from the reservation I appear to be paying more for the holiday. The final bill is now £3,116, an increase of £214.

I can’t understand how this can be. I know there is a booking amendment charge of £40 but easyJet Holidays has effectively downgraded our room, from a family room sleeping four to a double with extra bed, and charged extra for it. This just doesn’t seem fair.

Gill Charlton, consumer expert, replies It does appear very strange to end up paying more for a holiday after cancelling one of the participants, albeit a child sharing a room. EasyJet can almost certainly resell the flight so even if there were administration charges from its accommodation supplier, Lowcostbeds, I didn’t see why these should be passed on.

The terms and conditions that apply to holiday amendments are very broad-brush. Surely if there was no financial advantage in cancelling one of the participants then easyJet’s customer services agents should have told Mrs English this and let the booking stand.

I asked easyJet to review the case. It says the confusion arose because the hotel has a minimum occupancy rule for its rooms, so the customer would have been charged for the additional person regardless upon arrival.

I pointed out that Mrs English had paid for a room for four people so if one of the children failed to turn up why should there be a problem? Where a hotel might argue it could, potentially, lose money in the restaurant and bar from under-occupancy, this was hardly the case with a child.

EasyJet Holidays said this is what it had been told by Lowcostbeds. To overcome this ruling, it decided to cancel the booking and remake it as a double room with an extra bed. However, the only smaller room available was a superior sea-view double. This is why there was no reduction in the price of the holiday. However, it turned out that the price should not have increased. Rebooking the room generated cancellation fees which were mistakenly added to the holiday cost, says an easyJet Holidays spokeswoman.

The company apologises for the mistake. It has deleted the extra charge for making the change and has also taken an additional £50 off the cost of the holiday as a goodwill gesture.

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